Thursday, August 16, 2007

Juventus: Back With A Vengeance

Juventus: Back With A Vengeance
With just under two months remaining until the commencement of the 2007/08 Serie A season, and with the transfer window coming to a close, clubs all around Europe are putting the finishing touches to their squads for the upcoming season.

Italian champions Juventus, who found themselves competing in Italy’s second division last season due to a match-fixing scandal, have been a major focus in Italy: most Calcio fans - friends and foes - are intrigued as to how competitive they will be this season.

Having lost the likes of Cannavaro, Zambrotta, Emerson, Thuram, Ibrahimovic and Viera following their demotion to Serie B, Juventus clearly are a much weaker outfit than they were when they last played in the Serie A.

However with a new manager, new faces, and a good mix of young and older players, Juventus seem destined for success in the forthcoming season. Of course, suceess is subjective for them at the moment.

It is good for Calcio to have Juventus, along with Genoa and Napoli, back in Italy’s top-flight competition. Juve are a team who has always been known for their depth, quality and endeavor to succeed - the reasons behind them being so successful over their history!

With new manager Claudio Ranieri, fresh from a respectable 12th position with a struggling Parma side, the future looks bright for the Bianconeri. Any team in Europe would be affected by the loss of such a quality defence including Cannavaro, Zambrotta and Thuram.

However due to the fact that, along with losing their entire defence and various others, Juventus were relegated to Serie B, strengthening their squad whilst in the second division was not on Juve’s agenda. Promotion back to Serie A was their desired objective, and now that this objective has been achieved, Juventus have commenced re-strengthening their somewhat depleted squad.

Although this new “rebuilt” squad went down to Newcastle and Hamburg, and then scraped a draw against Sunderland before a mixed display against Inter Milan and Napoli, there have been signs that it might all be coming together. Roma proved to be the punching bags over the weekend, as Ranieri's boys hit five.

Suddenly, the team that was being called "spineless" has a formidable look to it. With more time, they will work even better as a team, so there is only one way things can go from here: onwards and upwards.

Juve have made some crucial signings over the summer, signing Grygera from Ajax, Andrade from Deportivo La Coruna, Salihamidzic from Bayern Munich, Almiron from Empoli, Tiago from Lyon and Iaquinta from Udinese, just to name a few. And when you add these names to the likes of Del Piero, Buffon, Camoranesi, Nedved, Chiellini and Trezeguet, there is no reason why Juventus won’t be able to compete with Inter Milan, Milan and to a lesser extent Roma, over a full season.

The likes of Grygera, Chiellini and Andrade will hopefully form the basis of the new Juve defence, and with Gigi Buffon between the sticks, it coud be a formidable defence given some time. The midfield has always been a major strength in the past, and with recent signings Tiago, Almiron and Salihamidzic, joining a World Champion in Camoranesi and the recently retired Czech international captain Nedved, Juventus most definitely will be able to compete with the better midfields in Italy.

With Del Piero and Trezeguet remaining loyal to the club, the attack is the only area in which Juventus have not been weakened. However, the signing of Iaquinta provides the Bianconeri with three world class options to play up front, something that really marks the world's top clubs. Then they also have quality cover in the form of Zalayeta and Palladino.

With a master-tactician in Claudio Ranieri and numerous influential new signings, Juventus have all that is required to be a successful football club.

The future is looking good, but there will be a few slips, and the fans will have to be patient so as to not turn on their players and coach every time it happens. How long it takes them to recapture the form required to win a Scudetto still remains unanswered, but it could well be a lot sooner than their rivals would like.
Source: Goal.com
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posted by zann @ 12:08 AM

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